Because of Islamic teaching's discouragement of the representation of humans, particularly Muhammad, Wikipedia's entry about the Prophet has generated a storm of controversy because it includes representations of Muhammad taken from medieval manuscripts. The New York Times reports that in addition to numerous e-mails, the article has generated on online petition with more than 80,000 signatures (although it is not clear that all the signatures are unique).

Read the entire NYT story here.

[Via DallasNews Relgion Blog]

The Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction fourth annual poetry contest will be judged by a three-person panel. One of the panel members is Julie Leavitt.

Julie is a spiritual director, psychotherapist, and mom. Her love for dance has led her step by step on quite a journey of the soul (and sole). Her article, "God Danced the Day You Were Born" was published in the anthology, Jewish Spiritual Direction, by Barbara Breitman and Rabbi Avruhm Addison. She is on the core faculty of Lev Shomea, a Jewish spiritual direction training program in residence at Elat Chayyim retreat center in Connecticut.

If you would like to submit a poem, click here for the contest guidelines.

In the January 18 issue of Commonweal, Rita Ferrone writes about "A Common Word between Us and You"—an open letter originally signed by a group of 138 Muslim scholars, religious leaders, and intellectuals and written to all Christian churches, denominations, and individuals. She writes:

The “common word,” as the authors have discerned it, is found in the divine command to love God and to love one’s neighbor, imperatives found in the Qur’an, the Book of Deuteronomy, and the New Testament. Because of the centrality of these commandments to Christians and Muslims alike, the statement carries great weight and urgency. As the authors point out, obedience to God’s commands is a matter on which rest not only our earthly prospects for peace, but also the eternal fate of human souls. The statement concludes with an affirmation from the Qur’an that God made the world in such a way that there is a variety of religious communities, and that those communities should “vie with one another in good works.”

Ferrone notes that the letter could be a tool to ease tensions between Muslims and Christians in settings where one or the other group is in the minority. However, the response to the letter in the West has been mixed and hasn't yet generated enough attention. Click here to read her entire article.

The Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction fourth annual poetry contest will be judged by a three-person panel. The leader is Presence poetry editor Jinks Hoffmann.

Jennifer (Jinks) Hoffmann was born in 1943 and was raised in South Africa. She and her husband Alan immigrated to Canada in 1966, where they have lived since. She is a psychotherapist and a spiritual director in private practice in Toronto. From 2001-2003 Jinks trained to become a spiritual guide in a program called Lev Shomea, which means “listening heart” in Hebrew. 

If you would like to submit a poem, click here for the contest guidelines. 

Stay tuned for info about the other judges. 

Sherman YL Kuek, a Malaysian lecturer in systematic and contextual theology, blogs about pursuing a vocation in ministry. His perspective is Christian, but his thoughts could be applied to any institutional religion.

 

 

In seeking direction for one’s ministerial vocation, one’s preoccupation should not be fixated upon the ecclesiastical hierarchy itself. If being a part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy is necessary for one’s ministerial effectiveness, one should be willing to embrace this “call”. But if not, one’s primary consideration should rest on how one may most effectively contribute to the betterment of the wider church in the longer run, even if this is bound to take place to the detriment of one’s own “career development”.

Read more here.

Please take a moment to evaluate the June 2007 issue of Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction. To participate in the current evaluation, click here and follow the online instructions.

 

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The Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction third annual poetry contest will be judged by a three-person panel. One of the panel members is John Mizelle.

John writes fiction, poetry, and music that arises from the well of silence. He has practiced psychotherapy, taught psychology and conflict resolution, and facilitated spiritual groups for twenty years. All his work is oriented to inviting people to discover the essential, unconditioned Self. He lives in the mountains of Santa Cruz, California, USA, with his wife and a family of animals.

If you would like to submit a poem, click here for the contest guidelines.

For information about the judges, click here.

Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction welcomes three new members to the editorial review panel:

• Gordon Self from Alberta, Canada
  
• Gloria Tiede from Vancouver, Canada
  
• Doug Gregg from St. George, Utah, USA

For a full list of current panel members, click here.

The Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction third annual poetry contest will be judged by a three-person panel. One of the panel members is Hannah Thomassen. 

Hannah takes her inspiration as a writer from the Pacific Northwest, USA, landscape, where she lives with her husband, two sheep, three donkeys, twelve chickens and a dog on four creekside acres in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. Her professional background includes education and hospital administration, from which she is now retired. She completed a course of study in spiritual direction in 2004 and sees directees in her home.

If you would like to submit a poem, click here for the contest guidelines. 

Stay tuned for info about the other judges.

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What was your favorite article in the December 2006 issue of Presence?
	Twenty-Five Years of Siloam
	A Healing Place
	Precious
	The Contribution of Evelyn Underhill
	Visio Divina: Creating Sacred Space with Generation X
	Gardener of the Soul
	Congregational Spiritual Companions
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Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction welcomes two new members to the editorial review panel:

Philip Carter from South Australia
Patrick Howell, SJ, from Seattle, Washington, USA

For a full list of current panel members, click here.